Sanchez: Incentivizing independence

In a pivotal moment of the 2012 presidential campaign, a guest at a private fundraiser for Mitt Romney recorded the candidate proclaiming that 47 percent of voters would vote for his opponent "no matter what," citing that figure as the percentage of Americans who receive some form of public assistance, pay no personal income taxes, and believe they're entitled to that assistance.

Unfortunately for Romney, many interpreted and perceived the comment negatively, but the comment was certainly thought-provoking.

Further examination of the figures show that statistic to be closer to 35 percent when you subtract social security and Medicare recipients from the total, but either way, with more than one-third of the population receiving some form of direct public assistance, it begs the question of why. And why there haven't been any major concerted efforts to examine the causes, and to stem the billions in unquestioned outflows, especially considering the record levels of debt at nearly every level of government, from municipal, county and state, and of course, the staggering $16 trillion and counting federal debt.

I don't begrudge a temporary "safety net" to those that need to help make ends meet, or put food on the table for themselves and their families while they're searching for gainful employment and self-sufficiency. Or for those with legitimate disabilities that are unable to financially or physically provide for themselves. But I think we need to end the culture and pattern of incentivizing ever-greater dependency on government programs for those that could otherwise ultimately provide for themselves.

I place a great deal of responsibility for this on policies of various government-funded social service agencies that measure their employees' performance and effectiveness by the number of people they can qualify for public assistance, and the number of programs they can get them on. I understand the basic human desire and urge to help people. But is enabling and encouraging chronic dependency really "helping?"

I don't have an immediate answer in terms of flipping the incentive model for social service caseworkers. Certainly, incentivizing them to pare their caseloads down may seem like they're working themselves out of a job, and after decades of conditioning to add as many people to their roles as possible, would probably give a great deal of pushback to such policies.

But perhaps it's time to at least start the dialogue on how to create policies that will ultimately encourage independence, self-sufficiency, and limited need for direct assistance, and encourage policymakers and caseworkers to look at their definition of "helping" from a different perspective.

--Edward A. Sanchez is an automotive journalist who lives in Laguna Hills. He grew up in Northern California's Silicon Valley. He has lived in Southern California for the past 14 years, and in Orange County for the last eight.

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